Necaxa Defeats FC Juarez 2-0 to Earn Promotion to Liga MX

It was not meant to be for Bravos de FC Juarez. Necaxa's dominance over professional soccer teams from Juarez continued on Saturday night at Benito Juarez Olympic Stadium as they defeated the Bravos by a score of 2-0. The 3-0 aggregate score of the 2-game home and home Ascenso MX Promotion Final gave Necaxa the promotion into Liga MX, Mexico's premier soccer division.

The match began as expected, the Bravos came out of the gate establishing a dominance on the pitch. They quickly created 3 scoring opportunities in first 4 minutes of play, including a point blank shot on goal that found Necaxa goalkeeper Yosgart Gutierrez's torso instead of the back of the net.

Two goals were disallowed because of a called offsides (in both the 23 and 44th minutes), however both scoring plays were so close that they could have gone either way by the officials. As a result, the match's momentum began to change for FC Juarez. Going into half in a scoreless draw (FC Juarez was losing 1-0 in the aggregate score), a sense of worry and despair quickly appeared throughout the stadium.

As the 2nd half progressed, Necaxa found itself more comfortable with the situation at hand, and in the 55th minute of play Luis Gallegos took a strike from more than 30 yards out that got past Ivan Vazquez Mellado. From there, that desperation began to escalate and a sense of defeat started to loom over the 21,500 fans at the stadium. Unfortunately, those thousands of FC Juarez supporters failed to make their presence felt over the course of the match.

Another goal in the 88th minute by Jorge Sanchez sealed the promotion into Liga MX for Necaxa.

After the match, FC Juarez head coach, Sergio Orduna immediately made mention of the second goal that was disallowed stating that "it was a bad call and the wrong decision". As for the lackluster 2nd half Orduna stated, "Necaxa went entirely into a defensive mode even more so than they had done in the first half, and as they did pretty much the entire match. They sat back and waited for us to make a mistake and attempt to capitalize on it which they did. The second goal was a result of us opening up more gaps in our defensive line because we needed to go attack more blatantly to make up the deficit."

FC Juarez started its vacation period for the players immediately on Sunday. The front office will have little to no time off as they need to prepare for the league draft that will take place on June 8th in Cancun, Quintana Roo.